Forget the whole U.S. Olympic teams uniforms being made in China thing. We have bigger fish to fry: the American Girl is apparently Canadian.
For those of you who don’t know, American Girl is a line of dolls representing various periods in American history. They’re generally sold with paperback books that relate the history of the time period through the perspective of the girls. The dolls have been around for over 25 years (originally sold by mail order) but now, as a subsidiary of Mattel, you can have the whole American Girl experience by walking into any number of mall stores in the country.
If you don’t own an American Girl doll, it’s either because (1) your parents didn’t love you enough or (2) they’re too darn expensive, depending on who you ask. Clearly, I love my girls because we have two: Kit Kittredge, the adorable moppet who survived the Depression with her determination to become a reporter at Cincinnati’s major daily newspaper, and Addy Walker, the plucky former slave girl who escapes to freedom with her mother during the Civil War.
So, it was not completely unexpected that word of a new American Girl movie resulted in a slew of squeals and pleading. And I bit. Because it’s wholesome and adorable and teaches life lessons? Sure. And also because my girls caught me in a moment of weakness on a long road trip.
The new movie in question was McKenna Shoots For the Stars. It was filled with all of the drama you’d expect from a tween movie: Will our curly-haired heroine, McKenna Brooks, make the gymnastics finals? Will her friends find out her big secret? And why, why, why don’t her parents understand how.very.important all of this is to her?
I’ll be honest with you: it wasn’t as painful to watch as I thought it would be. The worst part was that moment when I realized that one of the teen heartthrobs of my era (Ian Ziering from Beverly Hills, 90210 – the real 90210) played the dad in the movie-making me officially old. Ouch. Also disturbing? My kids didn’t know who Cathy Rigby was (only the first American woman to win a medal in world gymnastics, sheesh). But we moved past that.
The movie ostensibly takes place in Seattle. We know this because there are regular screenshots of the Seattle skyline complete with the Space Needle in the background. Beautiful. And oh so very American.
Only it didn’t feel American. And I know that sounds weird. But the screenshots made it feel like it was filmed somewhere else and the shots were actually just meant to reassure the viewer. And I had a hunch where. So I made my poor girls wait until the end of the credits so that I could verify: our American Girl was really Canadian. The film was shot in its entirety (according to the IMDB database) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Why Canada? No, it’s not just the delicious food and temperate climates (I kid, Canada, you know I love you, eh?). It’s all about the tax credits. The filmmakers said as much, officially acknowledging the film tax credit at the end of movie credits.
And this is nothing new.
Since the debut of the Production Services Tax Credit program in Canada (in October 1997), Hollywood blockbusters like Gone in 60 Seconds (with Nicolas Cage, Robert Duvall, and Angelina Jolie), X-Men (with Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart), 50/50 (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, and Anna Kendrick) have moved north. Notably, most of the Twilight series (with Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner) was also filmed in Canada, after the first in the series was filmed mostly around Oregon, marking a trend that much of Hollywood has seemed to follow: shooting the sequel (and successive flicks) in Canada. Other films that followed that trend include American Pie, Halloween, and Final Destination.
The Production Services Tax Credit program in Canada appears to be accomplishing its goal: to encourage foreign producers to both produce in Canada and to employ Canadian residents. The federal tax credit is refundable, making it more appealing. In addition, several provinces in Canada have announced similar tax incentive programs making Canada even more attractive to foreign producers. The result is that Canada has managed to convince Hollywood to ditch productions in more expensive jurisdictions like California, New York, New Jersey – the federal program alone has provided more than $1 billion in tax incentives.
Pretty steep. But if that’s dollars out of the Treasury (money that the U.S. clearly doesn’t have), do we really care if movie producers look north for savings? I think we should. I know it’s Canada and we can pop over the border and back nearly as often as we please – but it’s still outsourcing. The loss to the U.S.? Here’s how I see it:
- Tax dollars. So, we’re not handing them out but we’re also not taking them in when productions flee elsewhere (though in theory, U.S. taxpayers must report and pay tax on their worldwide income).
- Jobs. Most film tax credits – including those in Canada – focus most of the incentive on local hires. A local hire in Winnipeg means no hires in Hoboken.
- Dollars spent on production. Materials used in the filming are generally purchased locally – makes sense, right? The cost to film the Hunger Games in my home state of North Carolina (relatively low budget as Hollywood goes) was $90 million. Some of those dollars went right into the local economy.
- Dollars spent by cast and crew. With few exceptions, you’re not schlepping your pizza in from New York when you’re filming in Winnipeg. You’re staying in Winnipeg hotels, eating Winnipeg food, and shopping in Winnipeg stores. A huge cast and crew can spend some serious cash: Hunger Games was said to employ 5,000 people. Depending on the length of the shoot, that can result in millions of dollars paid to local businesses.
- Tourism. I’ll admit it, I’ve gone looking for movie stars on location: I literally bumped into Bruce Willis, still dripping fake blood, while running across the street in Philadelphia to try and get a peek at Brad Pitt during the filming of 12 Monkeys (sorry, Bruce). And I’ve gone looking at locations after the fact (who among us hasn’t gone looking for the house in Amityville Horror or tried to find the exact spot on the Empire State Building where Meg Ryan met Tom Hanks?). Movies make memories – and they make dollars. Movie tourism dollars are big business. Folks still flock to Wilmington, NC, near where I grew up to find out where Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams, and James Van Der Beek hung out while filming Dawson’s Creek.
- Pride. So maybe this is a little hokey. I’m a business owner, I get that you do what you have to make money. But somewhere deep down inside, it rankles me to see an American Girl filmed in Canada. Unless she’s visiting Anne of Green Gables up in Prince Edward Island, she should be in the U.S. What does it say about our country that we’re outsourcing the most U.S. of U.S. products – from American girl to the U.S. Olympics outfits – to other countries? We don’t make things here anymore – including movies, an industry that we really introduced to the world. And that should give us pause.
I’m not necessarily advocating for more tax breaks for the movie industry. Goodness knows I think they’re doing okay – Tom Cruise made over $75 million alone last year, according to Forbes. But I think, as a country, we need to be more thoughtful about our dollars. Otherwise, we’re running the risk of raising a whole generation of kids who confuse the CN Tower with the Space Needle, think that New York is right next to Saskatchewan and believe that ice hockey is more normal than baseball (shudder).
Of course, making thoughtful choices is difficult and becoming increasingly so. The American Girl dolls themselves? They may be filmed in Canada but they’re apparently made in China. Perhaps it would be a little easier to “Buy American” if we knew what was actually made here… If not American Girl and U.S. Olympic apparel, then what?